No closer to a recycling resolution, WasteNet is sorting contingency plans to manage the province's recyclables after its contract with Southland disAbility Enterprises ends this month.

Recycling has become highly contentious in the deep south after contractor Southland disAbility Enterprises (SdE) publicly disclosed it had been told it was no longer the preferred tenderer for recycling services when its contract expires at the end of this month. 

Doing so broke confidentiality in the ongoing contract negotiation process with joint council venture WasteNet.

The not-for-profit company employs 110 people, 82 of whom have a disability.

That means for the meantime, WasteNet will be contingency planning for what will happen to the hundreds of tonnes the province's residents put in their recycling bins every month.

WasteNet spokesman Gary Tong said the group's preferred option was to work with SdE management to extend its current contract for up to 12 more months. 

This way, it gave both WasteNet and SdE's staff more time to plan for the future. 

"Southland disAbility Enterprises were aware that there would be a requirement that should they not be the preferred [tenderer], for them to continue with a contract up to a specific time," Mr Tong said.

Other less preferred plans that could be on the discussion table included temporarily storing Southland's recyclables in facilities across the region, sending them to another contractor outside Southland, or in the worst-case scenario, sending them to landfill.

"We hope that [the landfill option] is not what is happening because it's taken such a long time to educate people about the [red] bin and the yellow bin. We are hoping that is not what's to occur, however that is a possibility, but a very distant possibility."

Over the last 12 months, Southland put out roughly 400 – 600 tonnes of recycling each month. At no point did Southland's recycling exceed more than 50% of what it put out as rubbish.

Last week SdE chairman Stephen O'Connor said in a media statement that WasteNet offered the company a two-month extension on current payment terms. SdE agreed on the condition that it be paid the contract price it tendered. He said WasteNet hadn't responded so far.

SdE general manager Hamish McMurdo said the company was still open to dialogue, but hadn't heard from WasteNet since a tit-for-tat of public statements following a divided round of final voting among Southland's three territorial councils. 

"Contrary to some of the media reports from some of these key players, we've never not wanted to talk."

Gore District and Southland District Councils unanimously voted to adopt WasteNet's recommmendation for a different contractor, while the Invercargill City Council voted against WasteNet's recommendations after a lengthy extraordinary council meeting last Wednesday.

By Friday, Invercargill MP Sarah Dowie, who maintains support for SdE as the preferred tenderer, said it was time for a "ceasefire" between the two parties. 

"Not withstanding all of the ping pong and the matters that have been raised, I really cannot still to this day understand why we can't get around a table and have some open dialogue to move this forward."